It’s True? They’ve Been Spinning Stories All These Years?

Pearl One

Hello Thrivers!

If you haven’t yet read the Aunt Bea booklet (this blog won’t make sense without it), just shoot me an email Wendy@theInspiredEater.com and I’ll get it right to you. ♥

Popular opinion tells us that we “should” be able to lose two pounds a week meaning eight pounds by the beginning of December.

Right?

No, in fact wrong. Like you, I was shooting for this two pounds a week business for decades too, it’s no wonder we feel defeated when attempting to maintain a pant-size. The two pounds a week idea actually hurt us because lose too quickly, and we risk waking up our cavewoman.

The two-pound-a-week metric started back in the ‘50s. I won’t bore you with the details, but a science guy decided that to lose one to two pounds a week we needed to both lower our caloric intake by 500 calories and essentially run five miles a day. (He actually said burn up 500 calories a day with exercise and that’s a 30 to 40 minute run).

See how crazy?

Yet our diet-cartel has stuck with the story that we can lose one to two pounds a week. And if we don’t? Welp, so sorry but that’s on us. The cartel has done the math, created charts and explained in official sounding language that we could lose one to two pounds a week if we’d only try. (Eye roll emoji here.)

They Never Promised Us a Rose Garden, Except They Did and Still Do

And why isn’t the diet-cartel more truthful? Because how would they make billions telling their customers (us) that what they hope to achieve is three to four years into the future? They would have no customers.

So nobody tells us the truth.

Problem with losing one to two pounds a week is that our bodies weren’t made to lose eight pounds in a month. Our brains evolved to save our body from starvation, so the moment our brain perceives a quick drop in weight, our cavewoman brain takes control and heads for anything super high-caloric.

She thinks we’re dying and that she’s saving us.

Let’s Begin with a Magic Wand

Let’s say I have a magic wand and wave it over everyone who wants to lose weight and poof! we’d all agree that the smartest way to lose is the following:

• Lose slowly so that you don’t panic your cavewoman.
• A plateau is a positive! We know that plateauing is vital to giving our body time to adjust to the new weight. (Remember: Be thrilled that you’re strengthening and holding. It’s a good thing.)
• Dropping a pound a week is pah-lenty.
• Counting new habits we’ve put in place deserve more of our focus than the number on the scale (I don’t think people believe me, but is a rock-solid truth).
• Expecting that losing weight is akin to going to college. We get that it takes four years to get an undergraduate degree. And two to four more years to get a masters or a PhD. Look at losing weight as a three to five year project involving a lot of new habits formed.

I’m eighteen years past my initial loss and – to this day – I record what I eat daily, embrace a smart eating plan, extinguish bad habits as soon as I notice one forming (they’re sneaky), read habit books on the regular, set new habits for myself, and get sweaty 30 minutes every day.

Embed strong habits and positive mind-shifts re: food and watch your pant-size trend down. ♥

Pearl Two

Oprah once said, “It’s great to have a private jet. Anyone that tells you that having your own private jet isn’t great is lying to you.”

That said, if someone tells you that being lean and developing strong food habits isn’t great is lying to you too.

After a lifetime of heft, it feels wonderful to have lost the fifty-five and maintain the loss for eighteen years now.

As you go through the holidays pull out every tool in your smart eating arsenal.

• Befriend your notebook: journal-writing therapy is one of the coolest tools to get to know yourself better. 
• Eat using the Drip, Drip, Drip plan (found inside Aunt Bea). I’ll say it a gazillion times: one reason we succumb to fun-food is that we’re merely hungry. Have a banana, a teaspoon of peanut butter, or a small container of your favorite yogurt. Poof hunger gone!
• Take mini-walks to clear your head.
• Relish the many parts of holidays that are so beautiful: the music, friendly people everywhere, and the gorgeous holiday decor. I pointedly notice a neighbor’s beautifully decorated front porch and I love seeing the door wreaths. I purposely put on our screen A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and let it run in the background with a very low volume to “decorate” our November-lives.

At one time, the holiday season for me was one long food-fest. I’d go to sleep stuffed. I’d tell myself that I just couldn’t resist.

Turns out I was wrong. Learning to resist was one of the best habits I’ve ever created for myself.

Give yourself the gift of being wrong today. You can make a new habit with yourself of declining the holiday food free-for-all. Plan to wake up on January first having slayed it, totally thrilled that you didn’t succumb to the season of calories.♥

Pearl Three

Sequencing is taken directly from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). The purpose of sequences is to help us move from reacting to circumstances to responding. I encourage you to do a sequence a day in your journal. Powerful stuff.

Automatic Sequence

• Situation (something super concrete): The Scarfer buys stuff for sons in the fall like new towels.
• Thought: Why can’t he wait and make these items into Christmas gifts? Because duh.
• Feeling: Annoyance.
• Action: I tell him how dumb he is.
• Result: The Scarfer’s mad at me.

Chosen Sequence

• Situation (something super concrete): The Scarfer buys stuff for sons in the fall like new towels.
• Chosen thought: Christmas is fifty-one days away. He noticed that our sons towels were full of holes. (They each get their own color and handle their own wash, so I hadn’t noticed.) The Scarfer claims our sons had towels that were practically not usable.
• Feeling: Touched at how caring he was towards his sons.
• Action: Thanked him for being so good to our guys.
• Result: I start buying Christmas presents hoping he’ll subtly get the hint. Lol!

Pearl Four

Books love us and want us to be happy!

I love memoirs. I like to say that I’m nosy, but it’s more than that. How often in life do we really get to know someone’s background and thoughts and challenges and fun times? When I was eleven years old, my grandparents babysat for a week because my parents were in London for my dad’s job. We lived in Reno, Nevada at the time and my grandparents took us up to Tahoe to see a show. I was so excited because I was in my first pair of pantyhose. Life was thrilling.

That night we watched the opening act: a comedienne named Freddie Prinze who was the star of a comedy at the time called Chico and the Man. Even as a kid i could see how hilarious Prinze was. He died not long after at the very young age of twenty-two. Freddie opened for a duo who had one breakout hit that I knew from the radio: “Love Will Keep Us Together.” Yep, it was The Captain & Tennille. I remember Toni Tennille as being so interactive and friendly but the captain literally said one word the entire evening. They made a funny joke out of it, so my kid-brain thought that the couple was just being funny. Turns out, he was not a talker.

Much later Toni assumed Daryl was possibly on the autism spectrum. Her years with him were very difficult and after thirty-nine years of marriage she finally threw in the towel. They divorced in 2014 and it’s all detailed in a well-written, very interesting memoir Toni Tennille: A Memoir. I will always love a great memoir. Five stars: total book-dessert. ♥

Pearl Five

“It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”

Alice, Alice In Wonderland

No need to panic but we’re 51 days away from Christmas! Okay, join me in maybe panicking a little. If you want one of the best gifts I ever gave my teens (and then used myself): The Complete Calvin and Hobbes collection. A wonderful gift for kids and adults. Bill Waterson’s humor and drawings are for every age. And the coolest advent calendar gift I’ve seen: Bonne Maman 2024 Limited Edition Advent Calendar, 24 Mini Spreads. And for the baseball lover, the best book ever: The Top 100.

Happy starting “cleaning the house and buying gifts” week!!

♥, Wendy

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I am not an expert, a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a nutritionist: the information within TheInspiredEater.com is based solely on my personal experience and is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.